Fisher Space Pens Civilising Space

The Fisher Space Pen is presented as the choice of Zorgons, Korgs and Groxps in an online, print and poster advertising campaign timed to mark the 40th anniversary of the first landing on the moon. Civilising Space, www.civilizingspace.com.au, presents three aliens, posing with their Space Pens, along with an explanation of the AG 7 Space Pen and its significance to the Space program.

The new season of UK football on Sky Sports and Sky Terrestrial networks has been kicked off with “Start of Season”, a TV advert designed to pick up the emotions felt by football fans everywhere.

Space can be a forbidding and inhospitable space. One moment the temperature can be a frightening -50 degrees, then a liquifying vacuum of 400+ degrees the next. You can be upright one moment, upside down and weightless the next. It is for this very reason that renown inventor Paul C. Fisher invented the Fisher AG 7 Space Pen and Cartridge in 1966. His aim was to design a pen that would overcome any obstacle.

The Fisher AG-7 combines a hermetically sealed, pressurised cartridge of visco-elastic ink that never leaks, evaporates or allows any micro-organisms or foreign bodies to enter. This allows the pen to maintain proper functioning and increases the shelf life from the average two years to an unprecedented 100 years.

The unique properties of the Fisher Space Pens have meant that after two years of gruelling NASA testing the AG-7 was first used on the 1968 Apollo 7 Space Mission, and have been usedon every space mission since.

In fact, the Fisher AG-7 Space Pen was such a technological advancement that civilised beings of all persuasions have embraced the technology. Be they Americans, Soviets or even the Zorgons, Korgs and Groxps. After all, we all need a little civilisation in our worlds.

The first time was on the Apollo 11 mission. Not Apollo 13 as Hollywood would make us believe. And the real hero was a pen. But not any old pen.

Paul C Fisher designed the Fisher AG-7 Space Pen to deal with the most extreme conditions. But never did he realised that his invention would be directly responsible for saving the lives of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin and bringing them back to earth in Apollo 11.

When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had finished their historic walk that stopped the world, and were about to lift off from the surface of the moon they noticed that the plastic rocket arming switch key had broken off. Without it, they could not fire the rocket that would blast them off the moon.

“Houston, we have a problem!” Ground control worked feverishly until one of the ground engineers realised that the AG-7 Space Pen Aldrin was carrying could fit into the slot and trigger the contact. The rest is history.

Even though Fisher never designed the AG-7 Space pen to save lives he did intend it to civilise space. That, he achieved.

Up until Mr. Fisher’s invention all space flights were using pencils that functioned well, but often broke leaving dangerous floating flotsam in the capsules that could end up anywhere. So there goes the ‘urban myth’ about NASA spending millions and millions of dollars in R & D to create a pen that worked in space whilst the Russians used a pencil instead.

In actual fact the Fisher AG-7 Space Pen has been used by both Russians and Americans on every space mission since it was created in 1968. And for good reason. Like all the finer things in life. It was specifically designed for space. For extreme conditions. For it’s functionality. And for its design. If there was ever a pen that you could call bespoke, this is it.

It’s a writing implement like no other. One that can write for 42 km without a glitch. More than enough for any extra terrestrial to write their version of War and Peace. The New and Old Testaments. The Koran. The Tanakh and the Satanic Verses. Including re-writes. In zero-gravity. Without worrying about broken tips. A claim no other pen can make. But then they weren’t designed to civilise space. And beyond.

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Such a brilliant article! Really got me interested, I think I am going to start a good collection of fisher space pens. Many Thanks for the inspiration

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